Brisbane, 11 October 2016: Solar Citizens, the peak group representing 5 million Australian solar owners, has called on the Federal Government to immediately investigate a national renewable energy target beyond 2020 following the Queensland Renewable Energy Expert Panel’s draft report released today.

“The leadership of the Queensland Government shows that ramping up renewable energy can bring huge benefits and highlights that the Federal Government has no plan for renewable energy beyond 2020.”

“The expert panel’s report makes it clear that renewable energy policy would be most effective if it were nationally co-ordinated. It’s time for Prime Minister Turnbull and Energy Minister Frydenberg to develop a national policy to ramp up renewable energy in a coordinated way across Australia beyond 2020.

“Queenslanders are already leading the world in rooftop solar uptake with 30% of homes powered by the sun. But this local investment has not been matched in the large scale sphere with only 7% of Queensland’s electricity supplied by renewable energy. The Panel’s recommendations to build 5,500MW of large scale renewable energy projects would address this.

“This draft report provides a blueprint to ensure 50% of Queensland’s electricity supply comes from renewable sources by 2030. This is very do-able, in fact research commissioned by Solar Citizens shows we can repower the whole country with 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and save billions of dollars in the process.”

Solar Citizens is an independent, community-based organisation bringing together millions of solar owners and supporters to grow and protect solar in Australia. Together, we take action to protect the rights of millions of Australians with solar to cut bills, create clean power and take energy generation back into our own hands.